The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will convene its inaugural Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference in Washington, D.C.

Kicking off on Aug. 13, the event seeks developers to work together building software, and sharing perspective for how Medicare claims data can be put to work improving health outcomes, according to CMS.

"The inaugural Blue Button 2.0 Developer Conference will bring together application developers in the technical community to help build and develop new tools to help patients understand their health data,” said CMS Administrator Seema Verma in a statement.

The event will offer hands-on sessions for developers and others in the technical community to build upon their Blue Button 2.0 applications with help and real-time feedback from the Blue Button 2.0 team – as well as patient advocates and other experts. They'll be able to meet with CMS engineers and see demos about the ways other organizations nationwide are integrating with Blue Button 2.0, according to the agency.

To spur the advancement of its MyHealthEData initiative, CMS recently released four years of Medicare Part A, B and D data – type of coverage, prescriptions, primary care treatment, cost – for 53 million Medicare beneficiaries.

The agency says it wants to continue working with developers to make new apps that can help patients make better use of that Medicare data and more.

"This conference is the perfect venue for developers to network with each other and with leaders in the federal government to collaborate on ways to engage Medicare beneficiaries to make informed healthcare decisions," said Verma.